All-in-One Instant Pot Chicken and Brown Rice

Got a new Instant Pot? Here’s a great first recipe to try! All-in-One Instant Pot Chicken and Brown Rice is an easy, balanced one-pot meal the whole family will love. It’s also one of the most popular recipes on our site!

Be sure to check out another mouth-watering main dish, Instant Pot Salmon, which cooks in 10 minutes (from frozen!)

We’ve had our eyes on the Instant Pot for a while now. It’s kind of magical, don’t you think? One appliance for pressure cooking, slow cooking, rice cooking, yogurt making, steaming, and other things we haven’t even tried yet… probably conjuring unicorns.

Of all the Instant Pot magic we’ve made and shared on our site, this recipe has become the biggest favorite. All-in-One Instant Pot Chicken and Brown rice is a warm, comforting bowl of perfectly tender ingredients that happens to deliver great nutrition, too.

Add this one to your meal plan this week. You’ll be glad you did!

Why We Love Instant Pot Chicken and Brown Rice

We’ve made this dish countless times! There’s so much to love about it.

It’s a true one-pot meal. Meat, veggies, and grains cook all together so you don’t have to fuss with extra dishes or complicated meal planning.

…But It’s quicker than the slow cooker. And you don’t have to leave it running all day when you’re not home.

It’s delicious and comforting. If creamy, savory rice, flavorful veggies, and fall-apart tender chicken sound like your thing, you should try this recipe.

How to Make Instant Pot Chicken and Brown Rice

Start by plugging in your Instant Pot and pushing the “Sauté” button. Leave it to heat up while you prep your veggies.

Dice your veggies, including the onion, garlic, carrots, and mushrooms. If you’re using baby carrots, you can leave them whole. Set all the veggies aside.

Rinse your rice well, than drain. Set it aside.

Add a tablespoon of olive oil to the pot and dump in your onion. Sauté about 3 minutes, then push the “Keep Warm/Cancel” button to turn off the sauté feature.

Dump in the rest of the veggies, rice, and broth. Stir it up.

Layer the chicken on top. I used chicken thighs because they’re so tender and have more iron than white meat. Chicken breasts also work, but cut them in half if they’re large, to ensure they cook evenly.

Sprinkle it all with salt and pepper, then pour in cream of chicken soup. Canned works, but homemade is fantastic! Here’s the recipe we use.

Pour on Worcestershire sauce and top with 8 to 10 sprigs of fresh thyme. If you don’t have fresh thyme, you can substitute a couple of teaspoons of dried thyme.

Close and seal the Instant Pot, and use the “Manual” button to toggle to 31 minutes cook time. Make sure the valve is in the closed position. Note: You can walk away now! But know that your meal will take longer than 31 minutes to cook. Ours took around 15 minutes to built up to pressure before it started counting down from 31 minutes. So plan on a little under an hour for the meal to cook.

When the timer goes off, switch the vent on the top to open to release the pressure. BE CAREFUL when you do this that your hand is not in the way. The steam will be high powered and hot! It takes about 2 minutes for the pin to drop.

Open the pot, remove the thyme stems, and stir it all up. This helps incorporate the juices that collect on the top, and shred the ultra-tender chicken.

*UPDATE* What to Do if You Get a “Burn” Notice

So, TONS of you have cooked this recipe and loved it. Thank you all for your awesome feedback! Some of you have mentioned getting a “burn” notice from your Instant Pot.

We’ve never been able to reproduce this in our kitchen. BUT, here’s what could be going on.

The burn notice usually pops up when you’re cooking something with a thick sauce. The Instant Pot likes to have a thin liquid like water or broth in order to create enough steam to pressurize the inner chamber.

If you get the burn notice, shut off the Instant Pot and carefully release the vent. Then open the lid, stir up the contents, and add a splash of water or broth. Then lock the lid and set it to cook again.

If you’ve struggled with this before, here’s a great article with more details about avoiding the burn notice.

When pot says “HOT,” add oil to pot and saute onions for 3 minutes. Then press “cancel” to turn the saute setting off.

Mix veggies, garlic, rice, and broth into the pot. Place chicken on top, salt and pepper, then cover with cream of chicken soup (homemade is preferable) and Worchestershire sauce. Place 8-10 small sprigs of thyme on top. NOTE: chicken breasts also work well, just make sure to cut them in half so they’re not too thick.

Seal the Instant Pot, close the vent, and press “manual.” Use the “pressure” button to toggle to high pressure. For brown rice: set the time for 25 minutes. For white rice: set the timer for 20 minutes. After 10 seconds the pot should register that it has begun the pressurizing process.

Once the pot is done cooking open the vent (keep your hand out of the path of the steam) to quick release the pressure. This should take about 2 minutes. Once pressure has released completely (the pin drops) the pot is safe to open.